Embarrassment of Riches

Moderates and other right-wingers in the Netherlands are tossing their clogs over the Amsterdam Museum's decision to dispense with the term Gouden Eeuw (Golden Age) in reference to an era of highly profitable military aggression, poverty, exploitation and slavery. An MP for the governing party squealed that the country was on a slippery slope from changing street signs to re-writing history, while a spokesbeing for the very 'umbly-named Christian Democratic Appeal begged to point out that one must not erase the past but simply explain its comparatively insignificant negative aspects while retaining national pride about an era of highly profitable military aggression, poverty, exploitation and slavery: "Nothing wrong with that either." It remains as yet unclear whether the victims of culture shock plan to redefine the Nazi occupation as a golden age on the grounds that, whatever its negative aspects, some people did rather well out of it for a while.